I Came Back but the World is Still a Fantasy!?

Getting rid of the cameras wouldn’t be easy. It just wasn’t practical.

After all, all 52 cameras being disposed of couldn’t possibly be passed off as an accident.

The best thing to do now was be to find some and report them to the student council.

That way he would get them to help him, and the credit of finding the cameras wouldn’t fall solely on him.

Other than that, all he could really do now was to gather what he could and settle things later.

After all, the only thing that was certain right now is that someone from the academy had bugged his room.

Still, living under surveillance 24/7 was just too harsh for comfort.

“Is this how this works? All that’s left is to put dad’s address in then…”

Shinichi took out a small piece of paper from his luggage and registered it in his foster.

Shinichi had two choices before him. He could make his observers think that there was no point to observing him, or he could forcefully bring his room under control without regard for whoever may have bugged it.

“It seems I can use this thing manually or through voice activation… Either way’s a pain though.”

“Kyu Kyui.”

The former would take time, the latter would probably end up revealing his secrets.

If he were skilled at electronics and hacking, he might have some other method, but unfortunately, other than knowing the words ‘hacking’ and ‘photoshop’, Shinichi himself didn’t actually have such abilities.

After all, he was only a middle school student. If he were working with Falandia’s tools, then perhaps he might still be able to do something, but unfortunately, there was simply too big of a difference between cameras and magic tools, even if they were using the same energy.

“………Camera? Movie? Save?”

Which choice should he make?

Shinichi read the manual as he pondered that question.

Fosters served both as mobile armament terminals and as mobile phones on Earth.

Everything that Japanese phones could do, fosters could too.

So it only made sense that fosters would be able to take pictures and record videos.

—Is there a big difference between the foster’s camera system and those hidden cameras in the room?

Both the fosters’ cameras and the hidden cameras used photon. They were also created from the same concepts.

“………Say, cheese!”

“Kyui?”

“Oh, right…

I’m going to take a picture, so pose for me, ok?”

“Kyui!”

When Youko finally understood what Shinichi was trying to say, she rose up and puffed out her chest.

Fire, ice, and lightning appeared on the three tails behind her as she emanated a powerful pressure.

Shinichi personally thought she was getting too into it, but he kept his mouth shut and quietly took the picture.

“…There’s even a photo editing app. Now, how to use…”

“Kyui!? Kyui?”

When she heard what Shinichi said, she jumped up his desk in a panic and peeked into his foster’s screen.

When she saw what he was doing, a suspicious expression appeared on her face.

“Ha ha, it’s so easy.”

It was so easy that Shinichi couldn’t help but sarcastically laugh while drawing cold sweat.

This was the same picture and video recording function that Shinichi’s world had before he left for another world.

He didn’t know exactly how it functioned. What he did know was that he could see the flow of photons as a picture was saved.

All the information inside the foster was being stored through signals made from photon.

It was just like the magic version of the digital world’s binary system.

Or at the very least, that’s what Shinichi believed as he tampered with the image saved by mana.

“Not bad, eh?

I changed the background to a jungle.”

“…”

Tracing his finger on the screen, Shinichi sent his own mana into the foster and interfered with the mana (photon) signals.

Suddenly, the background of Youko’s picture that Shinichi had taken changed from his bedroom to a natural forest full of trees and greeneries.

“……………Kyui?”

As expected, well-versed as she might be at magic and despite knowing that photon and mana were the same thing, as someone who was not skilled with modern technology, she could not understand what Shinichi had done.

She inclined her head as if to show that she didn’t understand, and sensing that, Shinichi apologized, saying, ‘my bad.’

“Of course, you don’t understand, my bad. But my point is that I can do stuff like this…”

Shinichi saved the picture he edited as something else, then he changed the mode and connected to the network.

He opened a news site that focused on Japan. When an article caught his eye, he would open it, and then close it, and read another one.

Everything he did, he did with his own mana.

After all, even the very input functions of the foster was done through the on and off of mana signals.

“I think I’ve more or less gotten the hang of it.”

Faintly smiling, Shinichi manipulated his foster through the mana signals.

He was always good at reading and controlling mana.

After all, he was a D Class. With barely any mana, he needed to control every bit of it to its limit.

Because of that Shinichi’s skill at mana manipulation had long reached the highest levels even by Falandia’s standards.

On top of that, this wasn’t Shinichi’s first time at using magic to ‘hack’ something.

“If we split it like this… and do that… and then that… and we’re done!”

Lightly fiddling with his foster, Shinichi finely controlled the mana.

Shinichi showed his foster’s screen to Youko to show her what he was doing.

On his foster’s screen were two recordings aligned horizontally. Those two recordings were none other than that of Shinichi’s room.

On the upper recording was the image of Shinichi showing his foster to Youko.

On the bottom recording was the image of Shinichi still facing toward his desk, fiddling with his foster.

“Man, thank goodness I noticed it quickly.

Otherwise, it would have taken me at least a few days to come up with a plan.

I’ve already modified the video feed being sent from here.”

Shinichi smugly smiled as he gave a thumbs up to Youko. Unfortunately, the latter was completely confused.

“…………What did you do?”

But while she didn’t understand, she still trusted that Shinichi meant what he said.

As proof of that, though she was still speaking in Falandia’s tongue, she was already speaking normally.

“Oh, so you didn’t get it, after all.

Basically, I applied a combination of the method I used to get through locks or traps and the method I used to connect the demon territory’s crystal balls with the human territory’s crystal balls.”

“…………Erm, you mean that ludicrously complicated trick?”

“From the Falandian’s perspective, yeah.”

Shinichi guffawed when he saw Youko’s face cramping up upon remembering what he did in the past.

When Shinichi came to Falandia, he entered a lot of ruins in search of a way back home.

He even used illegal means to sneak into nations’ treasuries and laboratories.

During those times, magic locks and traps would block his way.

Removing them normally would take too much time and would also leave a trace.

To avoid that, Shinichi came up with a way to create a ‘key’.

Magic traps and locks were bound to have a key that would neutralize them or unlock them, so Shinichi deciphered countless keys by analyzing the magic power of the magic traps and lock, then whenever he came across one, he would create a key out of magic that matched the ‘keyhole’, allowing himself free passage.

“Erm… So, basically, master, you used that to affect the— erm… network of those people watching us, broke through the traps and keys known as computers, and rewrote the recordings?”

“To add to that, my foster wasn’t connected to their network, so I had to create a path with my mana and form a connection.”

That was the method he used to connect the crystal balls of the two races. The two races both used crystal balls, but their crystal balls used different methods for their connection.

Shinichi’s technique could forcefully connect those two kinds of crystal ball.

The maou appearing that day on Falandia’s crystal ball was his work.

“………….You explained it to me before too, but honestly, I still don’t get it.”

“That’s only natural.

There’s no internet or computer over in Falandia, so there’s no concept of hacking.”

Shinichi only happened upon that hacking technique of his because of his knowledge as an otherworlder.

But it was only because of his masterful control of mana that he could actually execute it.

There is barely anyone from the same environment who could do what he’s done.

Unfortunately, Shinichi himself doesn’t realize how amazing of a breakthrough this was.

Or at least, he wouldn’t for a few more seconds…

“Who would’ve thought mana could be used for something like this.

Thanks to it I don’t have to go out of my way to search for information.”

While it wasn’t possible to get all the information he needed with just this skill, being able to get information without moving was still a huge advantage.

Shinichi chatted with Youko as he wondered how far he could go.

As it turns out, even the internet itself has already been changed into photon.

Because of that the mana coursing from his fingers through the network was able to get into various places.

“Really?”

“The network in this world is really big, so you can get into a lot of places.

To put things into perspective, the society of this world basically makes it so that every person has their own crystal ball. You get where I’m getting at now?”

“………S-Somewhat.”

Crystal balls were Falandia’s only efficient way of communicating across distances.

But they were very expensive, so while they could be found in any town or city, only affluent families could have one.

it was such that even the royal family or aristocrats would boast about having one in their ‘house’.

A society that had every single one of its members in possession of a crystal ball was already something beyond Youko’s comprehension.

“That’s why if possible, I’d like to get information over the entire academy or the whole floating city without leaving this room. Even better, if I could get information on the whole worl— I… did it?”

“Huh, already!?”

Shinichi was working with one hand while chatting with Youko, so when he actually made it work, he was shocked.

Shinichi looked at his foster’s screen with a cramping smile.

“After trying various things out, I actually ended up getting into the most protected secrets of a country.

Oh? So, that assassination incident actually had that sort of lining… This is kinda scary.”

If Earth were still using an electronic network, Shinichi wouldn’t have been able to get in.

But with everything – including the passwords and the firewalls – being made from photon, even a country’s cyber defenses was powerless before Shinichi’s analytical and key-making prowess.

In the end, it took Shinichi only a few seconds to acquire a nation’s most protected secrets.

So long as he erased any record of viewing the documents before leaving, no one would find out that someone had even read them.

It was the perfect crime, so much so that even Shinichi couldn’t help but quiver.

As someone who did not have Earth’s common sense and as someone with a clear goal, Shinichi was able to ignore the tinge of guilt from sneaking about where he didn’t belong.

Unfortunately, when he did apply the common sense from Falandia, he ended up doing something that left even him unable to keep calm.

“…………..Isn’t that like really bad, master?”

“………………………..”

Although Youko did not understand much about technology, she did understand how big of a deal being able to find a country’s most guarded secrets was.

Shinichi had no words to refute hers. He could only freeze up and draw cold sweat.

If someone were to find out what Shinichi has done, the whole world would surely fall into chaos.

Shinichi was a man with countless secrets that could set the world ablaze. Such a man was situated far out on a floating city, away from civilization, yet somehow someway, he still managed to tap into the world. And now, he could peek, manipulate, and do as he wished with the world’s deepest secrets.

Although the method was something only he himself could use, there was still no doubting that he devised that method.

—I screwed up!?